A Clear Distinction
by CaffieneKitty
Summary: This was not listed as a side effect of Sherlock's medication. (Written for the July Watson's Woes Prompt challenge on Livejournal)


**Alternate Postings:** AO3, Livejournal  
**Content:** light hurt/comfort, minor injury, medical drug use, dopey Sherlock, pudding  
**Disclaimer:** Not my world.  
**Notes:** Written for **watsons_woes** July Writing Prompt #13: Fun with Language - Take a line from the original Canon that may have a drastically different meaning now and run with it!. I'm certain this one's been done many times before. There is probably even a t-shirt. I've also taken some liberty with the suspension of the **watsons_woes** comms 'must whump Watson' mandate for the JWP challenge and whumped Sherlock a little instead.

**-.-**

**A Clear Distinction**

**-.-**

John wasn't sure what had awoken him, but with Sherlock recovering from a badly dislocated shoulder received earlier that evening and only having gone to bed himself at two, it wouldn't have taken much. He crept down the stairs and peered into the brightly-lit kitchen.

Right arm bound to his side, Sherlock sat at the kitchen table. For once he was not staring at the usual microscope and miscellaneous bits of dead things; those had been shoved to one side. Instead, a large glass bowl stood on the table, full of cake, cream and berries. With his one available elbow propped on the table, Sherlock stared at the bowl, frowning. His head rested on his left hand but was slowly drifting downward.

"Sherlock? You okay?"

"Mff. Fine." Sherlock's chin slipped from his hand and down to the table with a light '_bonk_'. His eyes remained locked on the bowl now in front of his nose as he let his left arm dangle.

"Just felt like getting up for a snack, then?"

"M' working."

"Ah." John knew for a fact that Lestrade wouldn't call Sherlock back in in his current condition, having driven the injured and querulous Sherlock to A and E last night. John hadn't heard a phone ring or voices in the flat or a knock at the door. He'd also hidden both their laptops and phones in his room in a squeaky drawer for the night, because the last thing Sherlock needed to do while heavily medicated was communicate with the outside world.

"What case is that then?" John said, confident there wasn't one.

Sherlock waved a hand and made a rude noise. "I'm practicing my method."

"Ah. By staring at a pudding?"

"You know my method, John. It is founded on the observation of trifles."

John blinked, then ran his hand down his face. "...Trifles."

"Hm."

"Puns. Right. We're cutting back on your pain meds."

Sherlock made another rude noise.

"Back to bed for you. Come on, up you get." John threaded an arm under Sherlock's good one and around his back, hoisting the detective out of the chair like a rag doll full of wet cement. "Where did you get a trifle anyway? It's five in the morning."

Weaving down the hallway awkwardly half-draped over John's shoulder, Sherlock muttered. "Asked Mrs Hudson."

"You woke our elderly landlady up at god-awful o'clock and demanded she make you a trifle?" John turned the knob of Sherlock's bedroom door and nudged it open with a toe.

"Didn't _demand._" Sherlock flapped his left hand by John's right ear. "Asked _nicely._ With the face."

"With the what?"

"Face." Sherlock turned his face toward John, pulled down into a fair approximation of a nine-year-old whose dog has just died but who is trying to be grown-up and brave about it.

"Oh god, the face." With difficulty, John navigated Sherlock past his bedroom doorway. "Sherlock, you can't wake people up and use the face to demand they make you puddings. Particularly Mrs Hudson."

"Worked." Sherlock fell into his bed with a confused expression, then after a moment and with a tone of distant contemplation said, "Ow."

"Definitely cutting back on the pain meds." John sighed and pulled a blanket up over his flatmate. "Sleep."

"Can't sleep. Must observe trifle."

John patted his good shoulder. "No, you sleep. I'll observe your bloody trifle."

A pale blue eye peered out from under an unruly fringe of black hair. "You will?"

John smirked. "Well. You're always after me to learn from your methods aren't you?"

"Hunh." Sherlock rolled over, torquing his blanket around himself, cocoon-like.

John paused at the door, lightly tapping the frame. "And you said Mrs Hudson made it? And you didn't do anything to it? Didn't sprinkle it with arsenic or anything? Just stared at it?"

"Didn't stare. _Observed_."

"Observed it, whatever."

"No. Didn't touch it. 'S raspberry." Sherlock squirmed back over, burrowing his face down into the pillows.

"Hm. Well then, go to sleep, I'll report my observations to you in the morning."

Sherlock was on his way to snoring before John got back to the kitchen. The bowl of raspberries, cake and cream still sat on the table.

_Now._ John thought with a grin. _What's the best way to observe a trifle?_

_-.-_

The tinny beeping of John's travel alarm clock woke Sherlock. He felt wretched. His shoulder throbbed, shooting pain down his arm and across his back. He was encased tightly in his blanket. The previous night was hazy after leaving A and E, and seemed to involve the afterimage of raspberries and cake hovering in his vision. Sherlock opened his eyes and levered himself upright one-handedly.

On his bedside table next to the alarm clock was one pale pink pill instead of the prescribed two, a glass of water, and a long note in John's handwriting. Dry-swallowing the pill and chasing it with the water, Sherlock read the note.

"9 AM, time for your next dose, but after last night's escapade you're on half the pain meds. I'll be back at 4. Stay in bed, take your medication, and only bother Mrs Hudson if it's a genuine emergency. I don't think she'll be inclined too kindly toward more frivolous requests from you after last night.

Also, my observations of your trifle as promised. Not one of Mrs Hudson's best. Layering was a disaster, to be expected in a raspberry trifle some lanky berk emotionally manipulated her into assembling in the wee hours of the morning. Tasted lovely though and went quite well with coffee for an early morning breakfast. Have taken remains of trifle to work with me for further observations in a medical office environment. Will also gather some outside observations from the medical staff. Do not expect trifle to survive further observation, though you are quite welcome to observe the empty bowl later, when you wash it (which you can easily do one-handed so don't even start) and return it to Mrs Hudson, with your apologies."

"John has lost his mind." Sherlock shook his head disdainfully and tossed the note aside before settling back down in his bed to let the medication mute the throbbing of his shoulder.

"It's a trifle. There is nothing so unimportant as trifles."

-.-.-  
(that's all)

(Original Quotes: _'You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.' -The Bascombe Valley Mystery._ and (modified) _'It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles.' -The Man with the Twisted Lip_)


End file.
